Day 3 of No Kibble

The house dogs definitely do not like the rolled barley. The midday feeding was largely ignored. I tried to snap you a photo of Winston the German Shepherd’s imploring stare when I put his bowl down in front of him, but he sidled up to lean his head into my belly, the serious begging, so I couldn’t get a picture.

The mix this morning was only a pint of milk; increased bottle baby demands and a hellacious cold snap decreasing supply is making a hard time of things. We’re defrosting last year’s frozen milk for tomorrow’s dog food.

I mixed up barley, milk, water, flaxseed oil, nettles, dried yellow summer squash, fresh carrots and an egg for each house dog and topped it with a slice of sourdough. It sat largely untouched for most of the day.
In fact, after we finished our own dinner, there sat the house dog’s bowls. I felt bad for them, so I dished them each up a bowl of our own dinner, white bean and chicken soup. Then a second bowl, along with the sourdough they ignored earlier soaked in the soup broth. They liked that meal, at least.

The evening meal tonight was lamb, judging by the smell. (Does lamb always stink? We can’t even cook it, yuck!) Levy says cereals and meat combined are hard to digest, but we didn’t want to waste the house dog’s uneaten breakfast (brunch? lunch?) so we fed them their meat and the cereal leftovers.

Meanwhile, the house dogs were immensely grateful for something other than barley to eat.

I put tomorrow’s barley on to soak, hoping it will soften up more with an overnight soak rather than the 3-4 hours it’s supposed to have. We’re considering a couple options, such as mixing rolled oats and barley together or switching entirely to oats since they’re more palatable. The big dogs (LGDs) don’t seem to mind as much, but I don’t want to make two separate meals to account for the picky eaters. I’m wondering if the house dogs, who both have digestive issues, might not heal enough to be okay with eating barley. In the meantime, I trust them to know what they should and shouldn’t eat.

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